Artist’s depiction of the Blue Moon lander, which NASA has selected for its Artemis V mission
Blue Origin
Planned moon missions with large landers may stir up clouds of dust from the lunar surface, which could be dangerous for orbiters or even space stations.
Later this decade, NASA hopes to return humans to the surface of the moon with its Artemis programme. Two companies, SpaceX and Blue Origin in the US, have been contracted to develop landers that can take humans to the surface by 2025 at the earliest.
However, Philip Metzger …